The Parting Glass (38 page)

I was, of course, correct to be afraid. Jack presumed on my friendship, and on the night he eloped with Fiona, he brought her here to wait while her family searched for them, thinking they would not come this far and once it was completely dark they could avoid apprehension on the roads.

They were wrong, of course. They escaped only minutes before her father and brothers arrived, followed closely by Jack’s. Someone had seen them nearby and felt duty-bound to report it.

I was alone when the families arrived, one after the other, and can only say that the good Lord prevailed and they did not set the house on fire. I can not report what happened to Jack and Fiona. For if they were caught, would anyone be told? Are they sharing a grave somewhere in the Irish countryside instead of a marriage bed?

I am ashamed sometimes to be a Christian, dear Patrick. We are far too frequently a most unchristian people.

Your loving sister,

Maura McSweeney

chapter 24

G
len had fallen in love with Clare McNulty at first sight, and even though he denied the strength of his feelings, he found countless ways to see her. After Niall Cassidy was hauled to the police station for questioning, Clare’s father was even more careful about letting her out of his sight. But Clare was bright and resourceful, and Tim was a busy man. Glen and Clare met when and where they could, and each time Glen was a little more certain that he had found the woman he wanted to marry, despite the obstacles between them.

Today they were going on a picnic, and Glen had asked his grandmother to pack a lunch. Lena Donaghue was beloved by her grandchildren, and she doted on them one and all. His own mother would have questioned him relentlessly until she squeezed out every thought he’d ever entertained about a woman. But Lena was more discreet and more inclined to cook up a true feast to impress Clare.

He stopped by his grandmother’s house on the morning he was to meet Clare at Edgewater Park. As always, he was forced to wind a path through a cadre of great-grandchildren who were playing jacks and dominoes on the front porch. In the parlor he stepped over two teenage cousins who were listening to John McCormack warble a sentimental ballad on Lena’s brand-new radio.

He found her in the kitchen, as he knew he would. Her hair was white, with just a few strands of red, and she had it pinned on top of her head in a knot. No fashionable bob for his grandmother, but she was still slender, despite giving birth to six children, and the lines in her cheeks did little to detract from a face that remained lovely in its way.

His grandfather Rowan, who had passed away nearly ten years before, had insisted that his wife teach her children to cook so that she would have help both at the saloon and at home. With one exception, Lena had taught her offspring the basics and little else. Only to Terence, Glen’s father and her oldest son, had she passed on the sacred family recipes. By not giving them to everyone, Glen suspected that Lena was making certain that her family continued to congregate at the saloon after she died. They would be forced to if they wanted a real taste of home.

“Something smells wonderful,
Mamó.
” She had always been
Mamó
Lena to him and to the other grandchildren, a word she’d brought over from the old country. It was just one of the ways she remained Irish, along with a musical brogue when she spoke.

“And what else but it should, darling?” She leaned over and kissed his cheek when he came to stand beside the stove. “I’m making enough for every Donaghue ever born.”

Glen suspected his grandmother missed cooking for her customers at the saloon, even though a fierce battle with pneumonia had weakened her lungs and forced her into retirement. But she had grandchildren enough to keep her happy, and a son and Irish daughter-in-law who kept the saloon running to her strict standards. And there was always someone in the family, like Glen, who needed her to cook something special.

He spied a straw hamper on the counter and peeked inside. It was already filled with food. If he and Clare began to eat the moment he found her at the park and continued to eat until they parted, they might be able to dispense with half of it.

“Now don’t you go saying it’s too much,” Lena told him. “Take whatever you can’t finish back to that tiny room in a stranger’s house you call home.”

Glen had moved out of his parents’ home when he became a Prohibition agent. He suspected his family understood, although it was something of a scandal, but he knew better than to live where he might hear tales that would test his morals. He visited frequently, but the move was a reminder to his family that they needed to exercise care in his company or risk a raid.

“I’m sure we’ll eat every bite,” he said. “It looks wonderful.”

“This girl of yours, she enjoys good cooking?”

“I don’t know. We’ve never eaten together.”

“And why hasn’t she had you to her house for Sunday dinner? Have you met her family?”

He wasn’t sure how much to tell her. Lena could be discreet if she chose. But if she was too worried about him, she would probably share her fears with his parents. “Her father wouldn’t approve of me,” he said, trying for the most minimal of explanations.

Lena faced him. “Just tell me she’s a good Catholic girl.”

“That she is. We met at church.”

“Then I might well know her.”

“
Mamó,
there are complications. She’s all the things you’d want for me. Her father is a different story.”

“Perhaps it’s only that you haven’t given him a chance to know you. Can you be sure he’s so bad? Or perhaps he doesn’t like the Irish?”

“He is Irish.”

Lena looked as if he’d given her the moon and the stars.

“He’s a bootlegger,
Mamó.
”

“Tim McNulty!” Her smile became a grimace. “Glen, are you daft, child? I’ve seen the daughter. She’s a lovely girl, but surely there are lovely girls all over the West Side whose fathers don’t walk the streets with bodyguards?”

“You’re the only one who knows. Please don’t tell anyone else. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Her father wants her to marry a man from Chicago, another bootlegger. And she despises him.”

“Is she using you as a way to get out of a bad situation?”

“She’s not like that. I don’t know how she turned out the way she did, but she’s kind and gentle and well bred. You’ll love her once you know her.”

“I
will
love her? Does this mean you’ve made up your mind already, Glen? You’re going to fight for her?”

He
had
made up his mind, although facing it hadn’t been easy. He was an old-fashioned man in a changing world. He didn’t like the fact that he was going behind McNulty’s back to court his daughter. He didn’t like the fact that if Clare married him, her father would disown her.

Most important, he didn’t like the fact that their relationship put Clare in danger. He knew McNulty’s reputation, and he knew the man wouldn’t allow his daughter to foil his plans for her, not easily, anyway. McNulty was dangerous, and he held his daughter in low regard. It was a frightening combination.

“I’ll fight for her,” Glen said. “But I’m not a fool. I may not win.”

“And that would be a shame, wouldn’t it? Because it sounds as if she needs you.”

“You’ll keep this between us?”

“For now.” Lena turned back to the pot bubbling on the stove.

Tim McNulty was in Chicago, and Clare had been expected to go, as well. She had agreed cheerfully and packed her suitcases, but at the last moment she had pleaded female problems, the one excuse that Tim wouldn’t probe or discuss. He railed at her for allowing such a thing to happen, but in the end he left her behind.

Jerry was supposed to look after her, but Jerry was a goof, easy to fool and scared of women to boot. When she told him she was going to spend the day in her room sleeping—and after she issued a few discreet moans when he walked by—he quickly deserted the upstairs. From experience, she knew he would make himself at home in the parlor with a deck of cards and a hip flask of hooch. If she came and went through the servants’ stairway at the back of the house, he would never even discover she was gone. And if he did, she would simply tell him that she’d desperately needed fresh air because she was feeling so faint.

It wasn’t the sort of thing he would report to Tim.

An hour before noon, Clare made it as far as the kitchen without being detected. She had her hand on the doorknob, ready to exit the house, when she saw a new man watching the rear yard. He was tall and lithe, younger than Jerry and clearly a great deal fleeter of foot.

She hadn’t counted on that. With her father in Chicago, she had assumed that bodyguards would be minimal. While gangsters might kill each other without qualm, they rarely turned their rage on family members. She was in no real danger. She suspected Tim was more afraid she might get out.

She was debating what to do when the man turned and walked toward the front of the house. She heard a car pull up and the faint tones of conversation. Her chance had arrived.

Clare closed the door softly behind her and scurried behind the river birches clumped along the walkway to the alley. The boxers Tim kept as guard dogs ignored her as she passed their pen, and she was out the back gate and halfway down the alley before she ventured a glance behind her. No one was about. She cut through yards, taking care to stay as far away from the street as possible, until she reached the corner where she would catch the streetcar. She waited until it had nearly reached her before she dashed from behind a neatly clipped boxwood hedge and boarded for the trip to Edgewater Park.

Glen was afraid Clare wouldn’t come, but when he saw her waiting beside the pavilion, he was so pleased that his own reaction dismayed him. From the beginning, he had tried to take their romance slowly, to be cautious and sensible. But one glance at her rosy lips and gleaming hair, and he knew that he had stepped over an important line. From the look on Clare’s face, she had, too.

He kissed her with no regard for the people milling around. He felt like a man who had fasted for weeks and was finally sitting down to a banquet.

“I almost didn’t get away.” She rose on tiptoes and kissed him again; then she took his arm. “My father was having the back door watched, too. Someone new to me.”

Glen knew that McNulty had an entire stable of goons working for him. He doubted that McNulty would entrust Clare to just any of them. The new guy must be an up-and-comer in the ranks.

“Let’s find a place to sit.” Glen led her toward the lakeshore. The day was sunny, and they were surrounded by people enjoying the lake and the August weather. A cool breeze blew off the water, making the temperature nearly perfect. Off the main path they found a tree for shade and spread the blanket Glen had brought with him.

He unpacked the hamper and told her about his conversation with his grandmother. “You will love her,” he promised. “And she’ll love you. Everyone will.”

“Glen…” She set down her plate. “Once my father finds out about us, there’ll be no going back for me. You understand that, don’t you? If I defy my father and survive, he will never acknowledge me again. I’ll be dead to him, and he’ll try to exact revenge. You’ll always be in danger as long as he’s alive or free. This should be the last time we see each other. It would be better.”

“For who? For you? For me? For him?”

“For you.”

He lifted her chin so he was staring into her eyes. “And what about you, Clare? What would be better for you?”

She tried to look away. “Don’t ask.”

“I have to know.”

“You know how I feel.”

“Just say it.”

“I love you. Can’t you tell?”

“I hoped you did. I love you.”

“We never should have begun this.”

He dropped his hand. Of course she was right, but they
had
begun it, and the rest was behind them.

“Maybe you’re right, but what would you have done if you hadn’t met me? Married Cassidy? At least now we have a chance for real happiness, Clare. What if we’d never found each other?”

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to get married. I don’t make much money, and I can’t support you in the style your father does, but we can live with my family until we find a place of our own. My grandmother has room in her house, and once she meets you, she’ll want us to move in with her. She’ll insist.”

“And my father will try to get even.”

“Maybe not. Once we’re married, our children will be his grandchildren. He won’t want to lose them. And maybe he cares more about you than you think.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know.”

“Then we’ll move away. If it gets bad here, I’ll ask to be transferred to another city. Marry me, Clare. As soon as we can make the arrangements.”

“You would leave Cleveland and your family?”

“You’ll be my family.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she nodded. And when he leaned over to kiss her, her response was passionate.

They ate Lena’s lunch and made plans. He told her that Father Patrick McSweeney, who had retired from St. Brigid’s, had married his grandparents and his parents, and Glen wanted him to perform their ceremony, too.

“His health isn’t good, and he only does the occasional wedding and funeral now, but he’ll do a private ceremony for us. I know he will. He’s been a good friend to our family. And maybe he’ll have some influence with your father, as well.”

“Or my father will have influence with him,” Clare said sadly.

“Not with Father McSweeney. It doesn’t matter how much your father’s given St. Brigid’s, or who intercedes for him. He’ll do what’s right.”

“Will your family come?”

“Yes, of course. Is there anyone from your family who might?”

“No one. But my mother will be watching from heaven, I know she will. And I’ll wear her dress. She put it away for me.”

He took her hand. “We’ll have to be careful, Clare. It was probably foolish to meet in such a public place. Until we’re married, we’ll need to be more cautious than ever. I don’t want your father to hurt you or send you away where I can’t find you.”